Tuesday, 4 October 2016

THE ENEMY PROPERTY BILL ,2016

The Modi government is trying to amend the Enemy Property Act ,1968. According to the website of Indian Express , Congress JD-U,CPI and Samajvadi Party opposed the Bill and said that the proposed changes in the act would result in punishing lakhs of Indian citizens and have no effect on any ' ENEMY GOVERNMENT '. According to them the provisions of the present bill violates the very basic Principle of Natural Justice ,Human Rights and settled principles of law .

The Act emerged when the India - Pakistan wars of 1965 and 1971 saw migration of people from India to Pakistan . Under the Defence of India Rules framed under the Defence of India Act , the government of India took over the properties of those who took nationality of Pakistan .China was also added after the 1962 war.Such an Enemy Property Act was there prior to independence also in which Japan and Germany were considered as enemy as per the British Laws . But later on the Act was re-modelled considering Pakistan as an Enemy nation.

There are large number of properties spread over 12000 acre in India which belong to Pakistani or Chinese nationals. These properties are worth more than 1 lakh crores .Earlier this act was not supposed to have any permanence , because the talks were going on between Pakistan and India to solve their respective property issue .So ,there was hope that Pakistan will enter into some agreement to that effect .But Pakistan sold off the Enemy Properties owned by Indian nationals ,according to their Law in 1971 itself.

The points in favour of the act from the goverment are thatthese properties has to be used and maintained rather than let it deteriorate or usage by unauthorised people .Legally also it is important as unintended benefits are taken by some people.

According to the Select Committee this Act clarifies the legal status of enemy property in India but the process of identifying such properties has not been completed .

The ordinance was promulgated in January 2016 ,the bill was passed in the Lok Sabha in March 2016 and reffered to Select Committee of Rajaya Sabha . Since then it has been amended four times and re-promulgated so that it does not lapse due to time taken by Select Committee.But due to absence of majority of BJP in Rajaya Sabha the Bill has become a major challenge for the BJP.